"Eeh bah glum!": Tour de France 2014 to start in Yorkshire as Armstrong faces up to the truth

While Lance Armstrong was being grilled by Oprah, the Tour de France announced it would kick off in the Yorkshire Dales for 2014

Guilty: Lance Armstrong confessed all during his appearance on an Oprah special last night

Lance Armstrong was left feeling a reet idiot as Yorkshire's 2014 Tour de France send-off through the Dales was unveiled.

On his way to chat show queen Oprah Winfrey's sofa early today, the American cycling leper behind one of sport's biggest doping scandals learned he had been stripped of the Olympic bronze medal he won in Sydney 13 years ago.

And the 41-year-old, whose seven Tour de France wins from 1999-2005 have been expunged, will be snubbed in the champions parade at this year's 100th Tour.

However, nothing could dilute civic pride in Yorkshire as the routes for the 2014 Grand Depart were announced by Tour race director Christian Prudhomme.

The first stage, on Saturday, July 5, next year, will be a 120-mile run from Leeds to Harrogate - a 16-mile car journey - through the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

And the second leg, from York to Sheffield, will be a gruelling 125-mile trek, taking in Bronte country and Holmfirth. With the third stage, running from Cambridge to London, taking the peloton through the Olympic Park before finishing along The Mall in front of Buckingham Palace.

When the Tour de France set off from London in 2007, two million people lined the streets for the time trial prologue and first stage to Canterbury.

Prudhomme said: "Bradley Wiggins' historic victory last July, and the enormous crowds who followed the cycling events in the streets of London during the Olympics, encouraged us to go back to Britain.

"Yorkshire is a region of outstanding beauty with breathtaking landscapes which offer both sprinters and attackers the opportunity to express themselves."

This year, as Bradley Wiggins defends the Yellow Jersey, Tour officials will invite 500 past winners and competitors to Paris for the climax as cycling's blue riband road race celebrates its century.

But Armstrong will not be on the VIP guest list. A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee confirmed yesterday that the Texan's road race bronze medal in Sydney was no longer legal tender, saying: "We have written to Armstrong asking him to return his medal."

Cavendish is jersey sure

Mark Cavendish can take the 2014 Tour de France leader's Yellow Jersey in his mum's home town of Harrogate.

Cav, who has 23 stage wins already, will be hot favourite to make his mark in Yorkshire at the 2014 Grand Depart.

This is the second time Britain has started the Tour - the last occasion was in 2007 - and its fourth visit after a single leg in Plymouth in 1974, and two in the south of England 20 years later.